High school students were banned from hockey games after the female goalkeeper shouted

KITTANNING, Pa. – A Pennsylvania high school hockey goalkeeper returns to the ice on Monday for his first game after he was subjected to spectator vulgar songs, leading to discipline at the school and youth sports organization.

Armstrong high school students shouted vulgarity at the Mars Area High School women’s goalkeeper match on October 28 between Armstrong River Hawks and Mars Fightin ‘Planets at Armstrong’s Belmont Ice Arena near Kittanning in western Pennsylvania. The songs of a group of 50–60 students were recorded on a video posted on social media.

The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey League on Thursday prevented Armstrong students from participating in the River Hawks hockey games and set the school team on probation for the remainder of the 2021-22 season, including the playoffs. Siblings of university players can only participate if they come in and sit with a parent or guardian, and the school must arrange for each home and away match with a teacher or administrator acting as a supervisor.

League commissioner John Mucha called the students ’actions“ disgusting ”and“ absolutely more than children are children ”.

“The game should have been stopped until the behavior ended or the fans were brought out of the building,” Mucha said.

Meghan Duggan, Team USA’s women’s hockey Olympics, offered support to Mars on Twitter.

“Every time you go ice, the women and girls around the hockey community are proud of you!” he said. “You promote far more than hostile words directed at you.”

Mars coach Steve Meyers said his goalkeeper, who has started the team in all five matches this season, was in tears after the second set. He and his family have declined to comment, and the Associated Press does not name him in an attempt to preserve his privacy and protect him from further violence.

Meyers said she was the only goalkeeper and one of the many girls who had played high school hockey in previous years, some also as a goalkeeper.

“We don’t have anyone else. He plays college and JV for us,” said Meyers, who was his 14th coach. “We’ve had a lot of girls in this league before, and we’ve never heard anything like that. Based on all the training our coaches require in safe sports and athleticism, this shouldn’t happen. To fail so badly, it’s really disappointing.”

Armstrong principal Kirk Lorigan said school officials were “terrified and embarrassed” and he was “disgusted” that parents and guards did nothing to stop the songs. He apologized to the player, the team and the Mars community, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

Lorigan said authorities are still investigating, but “proper school discipline has been used.” The Post-Gazette said he refused to say Thursday night whether the bans were imposed. The school board also did not specify disciplinary action. It was unclear whether the discipline was imposed only on students.

However, Armstrong County Commissioners extended the ban on students in grades 9-12 from attending hockey matches at the Belmont complex to include grades 7 and 8. In addition, high school administrators have demanded that the Armstrong Hockey Association hire two guards for all future games.

High school hockey in Western Pennsylvania is not a school-sponsored sport, but a club sport led by parents and effects in each school.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the board of the Mars Hockey Club expressed gratitude for the support, but said the leaders wanted to “respect and protect the privacy of our goalkeepers.” Authorities said their priority was “to create a safe and healthy environment where he and all of our student athletes can continue to do what they love: playing hockey.”

– It is clear that the incident on 28 October was completely unacceptable and the entire hockey community must take action to ensure that similar action never happens again, the Mars club said in a statement. “We hope that the attention raised by this case will shed light on the problems faced by female athletes that should not be tolerated, and that this attention will help eliminate this type of behavior from our sport.”

Armstrong, in high school in Kittanning, is 3-0 this season and won Mars 7-4 in a game played on October 28th. Mars is 0-5.

On Saturday, the Martian goalkeeper got on the ice again after cheering on his travel team’s Arctic Foxes fans in the Pittsburgh Amateur Hockey League. His next high school game is scheduled to play on Monday night at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Center.